A system of robots that harvests and transports crops on their own without human help has been developed for use in agricultural facilities such as smart farms.
The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) has developed a new multiple-robot system for harvesting and transporting crops in agricultural facilities such as smart farms. This system is capable of automating the entire farming process by using robots that harvest crops and then transport them to the loading docks, without requiring human assistance.
The new system was developed by a research team led by Choi Tae-yong, principal researcher at the AI Robot Research Division’s Department of Robotics and Mechatronics of the KIMM. The team has successfully developed a system that consists of crop harvesting robots and transfer robots, which are capable of recognizing crop information rapidly and precisely in facility farm settings by applying KIMM’s cutting-edge mechanical and AI technologies.
Previous robot technologies for harvesting crops were limited to implementing single crop harvesting functions due to the complexity and high variability of the agricultural environment, which requires an advanced level of skills when applying robot technologies. However, KIMM’s new multiple-robot system for harvesting crops has established multiple robot-based harvesting and transportation technologies to enable the automation of crop harvesting work for the entire farming facility.
The harvesting robots are equipped with robotic arms and high-powered robotic hands developed by KIMM, which are specifically designed to harvest tough crops without difficulty. They apply AI technology to recognize the location and shape of crops accurately, and the crops are then harvested using the robotic hands. Once the box is filled to a certain point, a transport robot is called and the crops are transferred over for transport.
Assuming a crop recognition rate of over 90% and 24-hour operations, the KIMM research team succeeded in developing crop harvesting with 80% efficiency compared to that of humans. This technology is expected to help solve difficulties at agricultural sites, which are facing severe labor shortages recently, resulting in the inability to harvest crops after they have been farmed.
Choi Tae-yong stated that the newly developed multiple-robot system for harvesting crops marks the beginning of research to solve labor shortage problems in agricultural areas, which are gradually disappearing. The KIMM team will continue to conduct research on performance and functional enhancement technologies that can be applied not only to indoor farming facilities but also to various manual labor in outdoor environments, such as orchards.
This research study was conducted as part of the "Advanced Agricultural Machinery Industrialization Technology Development Project", operated by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (IPET), under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. The study participants included Hada Co., Ltd., the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chungbuk National University, and Chungnam National University.
